Root & Branch

The ongoing tale of William, Son of Ophelia of House Rebma, and of the Line of Barimen in the Courts of Chaos.

We make it to Ygg, but not without incident. Sorashi was waylaid while escorting one of the wagons in and despite making short work of several assailants, she was poisoned and needed medical treatment. Overnight, however, she shows her Amber heritage, shrugging off the worst effects in the way that Family do.

There are two potential groups of combatants around us – Barimen like tribes people in very small groups, who pose no real threat to the column. The Serpentmen creatures nearby are in much greater number – their city numbers in the thousands, and they seem to hunt the tribespeople for sport or slaves.

Darig and I set to organising the camp to take the threat into account, with Deirdre’s main forces, Corwin’s rearguard and Benedict’s Immortals to come through last. We will wait here overnight until the whole army is assembled, bringing in each unit as they are deposited somewhere nearby by the forces of Chaos.

Bleys comes through and starts assuming command as the most senior Royal present. Darig and I share looks and go over to where he is setting out his troops. Darig takes the reasonable position of trying to explain why Bleys should move his troops, whereas I just tell him to move them. Fiona shows up and calms the waters a little, and with a well-practiced shrug, Bleys agrees to move to make space for the incoming troops.

Alitta, Dirk’s demon, lands in her Roc form and changes her head to a Barimen form to report. The Lizardfolk have flying support over their troops – 8 large winged lizards with more over the city as air defence. Her assessment is that they are combat capable. Darig and I consult – he will strengthen the defences to the side where the Lizardmen forces are and I talk with the two Chaos Orders to see if they have flyers amongst them. We ask Alitta to stay with us to give us some air capability with Rachael and De Lambre – even if it is just straight upwards to lengthen the horizon. We send Bleys to form a rapid strike force of cavalry to ride out if any of our forces appear near enough to the Lizardman forces to be at risk. Bleys takes the ‘suggestion’ with good grace.

We put our plans in motion and keep constant contact. Benedict trumps me and tells us Deirdre is next. We issue standing orders for engagement and keep the commanders of each division informed as to the disposition of the lizardmen army.

At lunchtime, Benedict calls the command team together, including waking Fiona. We discuss the disposition of the Lizardmen army. Benedict formally thanks Melvyn and the court for the supplies and aid in getting to Ygg.

As they leave, Melvyn takes me aside. He apologizes again for the assassination attempt against me at Bru-na-Boinne and asks if the debt is now repaid. I agree that the aid that Chaos has offered to us in this time of travel puts us in the clear. He then asks if we might consider each other friends, and I agree. I tell him that should he need to invade Amber again, my Order were being trained in Amber martial techniques and he smiled and said ‘not in my lifetime’.

Benedict calls the meeting to order. Despite being at Ygg, we are still a long distance from Amber and despite the food supplies from Chaos, we have no more than 6 weeks supplies.

Llewella has contacted Rebma. There has been a massive earthquake and much of Amber has fallen into the sea. Fiona cannot contact the Amber pattern so cannot call up the power to pull the whole army through. We discuss options, including splitting the army, but both Darig and I counsel against it. We can dig in here for a couple of days while the invalids recover. If we can get a small force to Rebma, we can learn more, and Fiona may be able to attune to the Rebma pattern and then reshape her magics to use it.

Benedict asks if anyone knows if Ygg can be used as a power source and I suggest that Margrath probably knows. He tasks me to find out. With that, we conclude and go back to our duties.

I speak with Margrath and he tells me that, with some preparation, he can speak with Ygg and find out. He goes to a tent to prepare and I set guards who can tell me as soon as he is done, then go to spend time with Rachael, who has come down from her aerial patrol.

As we are eating, Alitta briefs us all. 12000+ troops were out of the city and massing about 7 miles out. Potentially heavily armed and armoured. There are several dozen of the flying creatures above the city and their army, but like us, they only approach in small numbers for reconnaissance. We discuss if we can make our camp look bigger but firewood is likely to be a limiting factor without setting light to Ygg. Until we have an answer from Margrath, there is little that we can do.

As dusk is falling, DeLambre reports: the flying lizards are returning to the roost, but it is unknown if something else is coming out to replace them. Troops still look as if they’re coming out. Alitta practices turning into an owl for continuing reconnaissance.

The two guards I’d placed on Margrath’s tent come find me; he is ready. I ask my cousins if any of them want to come with us to talk to Ygg. Rachael wishes to attend and I welcome her perspective. We collect Margrath and head to Ygg, where he dances his slow martial dance and we wait, ready for any ill to fall.

Disconcertingly, we can hear Margrath’s side of the conversation. He asks us what we want Ygg to do and I say we want to take the troops home. He repeats that question and then goes silent for a while. He then asks me what I would want from the power and I suggest he speak with Fiona as she might know more how to ask what he needs to know. He tells me that there is something at the roots of Ygg that it causing it pain – I suggest that we could serve Ygg by killing the thing, Margrath breaks the connection and we head for the mess tent.

Alitta takes off with her owl head in place and scouts. Darig and I split the night watch, as Benedict wants to rest. Darig goes to talk to his wards, and I wait at the mess tent to see who is around. Alitta returns and debriefs – she flew over the city and was able to see about 20,000 troops with more to come out. Spears, javelins, but no bows. Officers are larger, and there are smaller, older creatures with the units. She sketches out a map of the city, along with rough locations for the troops and the flying creatures. Darig and I study it on one of the mess tables as we make disposition. We agree that the lizardmen coming out into the field is a sign they mean to attack – were they purely scared of us they could sit behind their city walls.

I find Margrath as he’s heading for sleep – he has spoken with Fiona and she may be able to divine the city with a somewhat accurate map – luckily we have the one that Alitta drew. I then look after the guard posts until it is time to wake Darig and grab a couple of hours sleep.

The Dawn call is made and DeLambre kicks me awake. As I stir, Llewella screams in a tent with Fiona, Flora and Sand. Sorashi is inside the tent and Margrath is outside. He starts to tell me what’s going on and then Sorashi comes out and gives me a more succinct description of what’s going on. All of the lizard creatures are ‘soulless’, powered by a conduit between the tree and the city.

Fiona suggests we summon the creature to where we want it, as the lizardfolk will be doing similar.

We brief Benedict. He orders the camp to break and advance as we discuss how to disrupt the summoning. Darig takes the map to Fiona who says she’ll deal with it after breakfast. Meanwhile, Rachael descends to tell us the flyers are coming in – we send her back up to tell our flyers not to engage and bring our archers together.

The lizards swoop after our flyers and they break, scattering in different directions. Alitta draws one over the archers and they get several hits in. Sorashi and Surpanakha fly together and Sorashi shouts ‘Pattern’ loudly. Surpanakha tears one of the creatures apart and the others fly higher.

Fiona carries out her scrying and we set a small force together to go. Sorashi will carry me, Surpanakha will carry Rikard and Margrath, and Alitta and DeLambre fly with us. Once we’re down, Margrath and Alitta will try to bring Dirk and the rest of the Order through while Sorashi, Surpanakha, DeLambre and myself clear the ground. Margrath will then find the source of the conduit and we’ll fight our way to it.

We set off, taking a low and circuitous route to the temple where Fiona has assayed the conduit appearing, with Margrath looking with sorcerous sight as we get closer.

We land either side of the large snake statue and Surpanakha, Rikard, DeLambre and myself go to cause disruption while the others start bringing Dirk and the Order through. Both Sorashi and Alitta change form and we start our attack. Rikard cuts down the priest and the rest of us go to our roles. Chaos (pun intended) ensues.

I cut a couple of guards down and then head towards a guard captain and his two compatriots. We trade cuts – one of his gets in a cut on my arm as I strike the captain hard. Rikard comes up behind them as I strike the captain down as I see a large snake appearing out of the mirror above our heads, and another guard cuts at my right arm, disabling it. I grin at Rikard and then turn to attack the snake with Surpanakha at my side. DeLambre is in front and Musashi from the other side. I cut into its side as it strikes at DeLambre, knocking him to the floor, heavily wounded. As I saw that, I stood in front of it, and as the snake head swooped down towards me I speared upwards with Claideb, through the roof of its mouth into its brainpan.

Margrath contacts Fiona quickly – the first words out of her mouth are ‘Who’s hurt?’ which makes me like her a lot. We pass DeLambre through to her and she breaks the contact.

Ieyasu of the Order has died and we mourn him, then seek to patch up those needed – Alitta and Sorashi between them staunch the bleeding on my right arm and bind it.

Sorashi spots a fruit in the mouth of the snake statue and we keep one priest alive to tell us what it is.